


A Wretch Like Me

by SeverinadeStrango



Category: Guilty Crown
Genre: Body Horror, Constant Mind Games, Death, Eye Trauma, Gore, M/M, Permanent Injury, Sexual Tension, Somewhat Self-Harm?, possible masochism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24371395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeverinadeStrango/pseuds/SeverinadeStrango
Summary: Keido is tasked by Da’ath to clean up loose ends after the escape and disappearance of several test subjects.  Of course this just has to become terribly complicated, all thanks to one Segai Waltz Makoto.  Takes place immediately following the events of the "Lost Christmas" OVA.
Relationships: Shuichiro Keido/Segai Waltz Makoto





	1. Chapter 1

Shuichiro Keido, as outwardly calm as he’d managed to keep himself, was absolutely fucked. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours. He’d killed his brother-in-law. He’d left a huge mess and had been _seen oh my god are you kidding me_ because Keido was no trained assassin he was a scientist, damn it. A scientist whose only concern had been the evolution of the human race until he’d received word that not only had he been seen with Doctor Ouma’s blood drying on his shirt but the _test subjects_ had been seen, seen by everyone in the fucking town and now they were exposed. The experiments, the plan for Eve, Da’ath, all of it, they were wide open like a huge flock of sitting ducks. And it was his job to somehow make this all un-seen.

Right. Where to even fucking start.

On one hand, Keido couldn’t complain. He’d been sloppy. He’d acted irrationally. He’d killed Ouma, who’d been a major thorn in their side but even that hadn’t been done with humanity in mind and now they were all paying for it. Yet on the other?

How in the world was he supposed to accomplish _this?_

Keido dropped his aching head into his hands as the GHQ military van sped over the half-destroyed road, jostling him and about two dozen soldiers inside. They were flanked by a caravan of sorts, which would be needed – an entire unit had been sent out with Captain Segai and apparently, every single one of them had been completely destroyed. No signals had been sent out and none were received, either. This was basically an en-masse body retrieval and they knew it. 

No amount of knowing, however, could have prepared Keido for what he would see next – the expanse of flat ground that looked completely pulverized, a thick cloud of dust still hanging in the air even after several hours had passed. There was a building here, once, although it was hard to tell seeing that even the structural support had been reduced to nothing but rubble. Oh, and there were bodies there too. Lots of them, so, so many, oh, _shit._

 _Makes my job easier,_ Keido thought grimly because it was true, and looked slowly over at the eerily still scene. He could see some poor soul’s legs sticking out from a gigantic slab, dried blood forming an unmoving pool around them. He imagined it oozing. Yes, it made his job easier, because bodies in this state were in no position to blabber, but there was a voice, a voice in his head telling him that this was terribly sad no matter what way you looked at it and that voice was starting to sound suspiciously like Kurosu. And Haruka, too. Fuck, that was worse.

The soldiers trekked out of the van silently, like robots, doing their routine sweep that would surely turn up grim but much-needed results. Survivors, zero. It was almost disgusting how much he was actually hoping to hear that.

And then.

Wait a minute, someone was shouting, this motherfucker’s still alive, and Keido was literally going to die here in the back of this van because no, no, this wasn’t something he was prepared to do again so shortly after Kurosu no matter how he looked at it. 

They can’t know, they can’t know, it’s a mercy killing and it’s good it’s at my hands rather than – 

“- Hirota!” One of the soldiers was calling out to another. “Get over here and help me!”

“Clear,” came one call from a far corner of the lot.

“Aw, what the _fuck,_ there’s so many…”

“Alive?”

“No, cut in half.”

_Lovely._

It was getting hard to breathe. The air in the van was suffocating and it was either from Keido’s own nerves or the thick walls of the vehicle itself but he wasn’t about to collapse right here when there were clearly more important things going on, not to mention that he did still have some dignity left thank you very much, and so instead he clambered out of the van, sucking in fresh air as subtly as he possibly could while uniformed bodies rushed back and forth about him. Most of them were bearing body bags.

“Where are the survivors?” 

He was just concerned after all, concerned, yes, as men of medicine always were not because he’d been given a task to silence them forever somehow without anyone noticing in a situation with no blind spots and no opportunities – 

“Just one, sir!”

The soldier in question’s voice jolted as they leapt up into the back of the van, the front of their uniform thoroughly soaked because in their arms was what _looked_ like a civilian who was very rapidly bleeding out.

“Set them down,” Keido immediately said, all former thoughts disappearing because if his brain wanted to go on autopilot right now? Hell, he’d take it, he’d take anything he could get if it bought him a little more time to just think. The soldier thankfully obeyed without question. Laid out on the bench on the right side of the van, Keido could see him, a tall, skinny man likely in his early twenties, immaculately dressed in what was definitely not an officer’s uniform. The glaringly obvious GHQ symbol on his arm, however, left no room for mistake. Segai had almost definitely been undercover and while Keido might have been in a quiet state of constant panic, he still had _eyes._

 _Damn you, Segai._

He was still breathing, that much was evident, and bleeding - everywhere, _absolutely_ everywhere. 

“No other survivors?”

Even Keido’s throat felt like sandpaper.

“None, sir!”

“Then you,” he motioned to the four nearest personnel, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, “get in. We’re leaving. Now.” He didn’t wait for compliance, that part was a given, and instead lunged forward and thumped the driver on the shoulder. “Drive!”

There was a massive lurch, and Keido was nearly thrown back as the van tore out of the lot, leaving the soldiers and their procession of corpses behind. He grabbed onto one of the dangling straps on the side for balance, just barely avoiding being tossed into the soldiers behind him like a sack of rocks and embarrassment. Whether it had been intentional on the driver’s part or not (Keido was certainly starting to think that it was) didn’t matter, however, what did was that the Captain looked awful. Waxy-pale and corpse-like, almost, his nails were blue, and while Keido tried to get a look at his remaining eye his black hair had been plastered so thoroughly to his face with dried blood that it might as well have been a curtain.

The combat medic who had climbed in with them, thankfully, had already gotten to work on identifying the source of the bleeding, and as he took away the soiled gauze Keido finally got a clear look at the massive scar that curved up Segai’s face and – he cringed again – right through his eyeball.

Keido had seen a lot. 

Now he had also seen what an eyelid looked like when it had been ripped into two pieces. Fantastic. What an exciting piece of knowledge. Segai might have _actually_ thought that, if he could see himself now. Keido couldn’t recall speaking to him alone more than twice, perhaps, but during both of those times, he’d always seemed like an odd type from his obsession with Baroque-period music to his insistence on using an ancient cell phone model to the glee he had while getting his hands as dirty as he could in every assignment he was given. It was never because he had to – it was because he wanted to. Considering his record, strange mutilation being yet another one of his interests didn’t seem all that off-par. 

The amused smirk from their last meeting (in an office with a very firmly shut door and not a singular word said above a whisper), however, which had been stamped into Keido's mind ever since, was gone. He almost looked like he was _grinning_ if Keido didn’t know better – could he be? The medic’s arm blocked his face again, applying pressure over his bleeding eye, and that was enough of that. They were back at headquarters in record time and before Keido could even blink the Captain had been all but thrown onto a stretcher and raced into the facilities. The blood on the bench of the van was still wet.

No, he couldn’t stay here – the engine was still running and the driver clearly was waiting for him to step out. Can’t be suspicious. Keido mechanically hopped off onto the blacktop and walked forward, his legs on autopilot just like his brain. The doors hissed as they slid open. Someone was snapping something about tracking blood on the floor. Keido couldn’t bring himself to care right now.

He’d killed Kurosu, test subjects were on the loose, the world was on fire again. Segai, Da'ath's most worrisome witness, had seen way too much and now was being held in one of the most highly secured buildings in the world and Keido? Keido had to _somehow_ shut him up.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two hours and twenty-three minutes, and Keido was painfully aware that he had been pacing the entire time. He’d returned to headquarters in the morning and even now they were beyond congested with handling the aftermath of what had happened. How long did this have to take, dammit! This wasn’t some foreign entity come to strike while the nation was in turmoil – it was one GHQ superior to another (albeit yes, there was quite a difference in power between the two of them). Nothing wrong with that. Nothing unusual with that. 

So why was he so bent on trying to _convince_ himself of it if that was all it really was?

Because it wasn’t, he answered himself, and the clean, quiet doors of the enormous waiting room slid open. 

“Sir, the Captain’s awake.” 

Keido turned on his heel to face a nurse who looked like she hadn’t slept in the past three days. He didn’t blame her in the slightest. The hospitals right now were overloaded and headquarters was no exception, given that under martial law all medical facilities were to be mobilized for public use following the catastrophe that had happened just hours ago. Hours. Days? Come to think of it Keido couldn’t remember when _he’d_ last slept either.

“Good. So you were notified that I was here.”

“Ah, sir, actually – Captain Segai asked for you.” 

_Huh?_

Quickly he thought back to the frantic retrieval trip of which the Captain had been the single survivor (and that was a different matter – how?). Segai had been unresponsive the entire time, and he’d lost so much blood that he’d nearly gone into shock – there was no way that he could have remembered Keido, who had hardly even emerged from the vehicle, being there. And yet somehow, he knew exactly where he’d be right now and why, all through what must have been a haze of industrial-strength painkillers.

That, or he was _insanely_ good at playing possum. Keido did not know which one was worse.

“Take me to him,” he said, and then followed, numbly, like a sheep because his exhausted brain was threatening to turn into fried mush and dear god he needed to conserve his energy, as she led him through the winding halls. He had a job. He was here on business. He had to find out exactly what Segai knew. Assess the threat and act accordingly. 

“Hello, Doctor. Are you here to take care of me?” 

They were in a room. The nurse, having earlier said something to him probably involving her being close by and to knock if they needed anything, was backing out just behind him and Keido was staring at the sterile interior of a recovery room with a simple bed on which was perched his biggest problem. 

Obviously expecting an answer to his previous question, Segai raised his eyebrow (the other, and the respective eye, had been covered in bandages). “Well?” He spoke slowly, like his tongue was weighed down – but every word carried intent.

“You were the one that asked for _me,”_ said Keido stupidly. He was in over his head and it had been maybe ten seconds, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still recover. Segai was calculative, more so than anyone Keido had ever seen before, but two could play at that game. “I find it odd that you’re awake already.”

Segai smiled with too many teeth. It didn’t reach his eyes. At least not the one that Keido could see.

“It looks worse than it is. I’m alive, aren’t I?” 

“Yes.”

“Disappointed?”

Keido’s heart nearly stopped.

“You’re talking nonsense, Captain.” He glanced at the IV line connected to his arm. “What do they have you on?”

It was a cliché deflection if any, and for a second Keido was almost sure that he had given everything away with only a few words, but for some reason Segai didn’t press him further. 

“Enough drugs to put down a horse,” he answered, and scratched at the back of his neck. He attempted, for a second, to smooth down his hair, wrinkling his nose in dissatisfaction. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this. Everything feels so, ah, _ungraceful.”_

“You would pass out from the pain otherwise.”

“I’m aware.” He sighed petulantly, almost like a child. “But I’d prefer to remember things, you see, rather than have it all blur together. I hang onto details. You understand, don’t you, Doctor?” 

_More than you know._ Keido didn’t even dare to blink, trying to find every meaning, every opening that could have possibly been woven into those words. Was it deliberate? Was it a slip of Segai’s legendarily-silver tongue? 

“I suppose I can see it from your point of view.” 

“No, you can’t.” He gestured to his bandaged face, and laughed. At his _own_ joke that could barely even be called funny. Suddenly the possibility that he was babbling nonsense as so many did after being drugged up like that was looking more and more likely. Keido didn’t respond. It would only feed into whatever this was if he did and he wasn’t keen on Segai making even less sense.

“And now?” Keido asked, “Are you still in any discomfort?” Maybe he could use this as an excuse. Call in the nurse who had led him here, let events progress, get Segai put under again for his own good because right now Keido’s own spot wasn’t looking too terribly fantastic.

“Oh my. And what have I done to earn the concern of such a notoriously _cold_ man as yourself…?”

_Is that what you think of me._

“I thank you for your cooperation, Captain Segai. See to it that you recover quickly.”

“Of _course,_ sir,” Segai lifted his head up, letting his arm fall onto the bed beside him. It was likely much too difficult to maintain any semblance of his usual decorum – physically, that was. Verbally he seemed to be abnormally, well - _normal._ Keido left without another word. When it came to someone like Segai, the less that was said around him the better. He’d felt as if he’d been mentally strangled and had _still_ come away with no new information other than the foreboding knowledge that he was the singular remaining witness, and that did nothing to ease his conscience. Or his judgement, for that matter.

“Doctor Keido?” 

“Doctor Ouma,” he greeted. “I’ve just seen the Captain.” In response, her eyes widened in surprise.

“I – I see.” She pressed her lips into a line, making to hurry back off in the direction that she had come from. “In that case please do not mind anything he’s said to you, I’ll – “

“Doctor Ouma, is something wrong?” Her shoulders sagged.

“Not entirely, no. The operation was a success. Although he’ll never be able to see out of that eye again, the structure was mostly intact.” She ran a hand over her tired face and through her hair. “But we’ve had to heavily sedate him. The nurses can’t get near him otherwise.” 

“So he was aggressive?”

“Quite.”

Keido found it hard to imagine. Segai was a military man, of course, and he had blood on his hands like the rest of them, but it was difficult to imagine him carrying himself with anything other than his usual disturbingly-calm demeanor, even _if_ he was in the midst of outright executing someone. Aggressiveness wasn’t like him, and if this wasn’t such a dangerous situation he wouldn’t have cared. But it was, and thus he did.

“You were able to actually talk to him though, looks like.” She scratched at her head through her hair, as if physically rooting through her own brain. “Did he mention anything about Christmas?” Keido stiffened.

“About yesterday? It was observed, after all, although I never took him for the type.”

“No, not yesterday in particular – he was saying something about some old legend relating to it, I forget the details. I think it was the one about the miser? Scrooge?” 

“That’s odd,” said Keido. No it wasn’t. This kept getting messier and he was hating every second of it. “He didn’t mention, well, _anything_ of that sort to me. I would have noticed.” That last part at least was true. 

“Hm.” Haruka shrugged. “Well, in any case, I’d better go note that he’s coherent again. I’ll see you off, Doctor Keido.” 

_No!_

“If you don’t mind, I’ll wait here for the rest of the night. I’m here on orders from the higher ups, as you know, and it’s best I personally confirm the Captain’s condition before I report back. To avoid any further trouble.” It was a hastily spun tale of half-truths, and god he hoped she’d buy it. It was plausible enough, and although it hadn’t happened yet the tightening of scrutiny over the research facilities, _especially_ Keido’s own, was inevitable. He could see the comprehension dawning on Harkua’s face and resisted the urge to sag against the wall with relief.

“Of course, Chief Keido.” After all, she was in the same field – she knew better than most what a mess this would cause up top. With one last nod, she turned and left, and Keido made his way back to the front of the enormous facility, his head swimming.

So it was confirmed. Segai knew about Scrooge, and if he did he also likely knew about Carol and possibly Present as well. He was hunting Da’ath – he had been for a long time and without even realizing it had been playing an extensive game of cat and mouse with Keido for years. This was the closest he’d come to a final victory, far too close. And those responses back in the room – what did they mean? _I’d prefer to remember things,_ he’d said. The fact that he’d asked for him. His calmness, the deliberation with which he’d spoken. Once Segai found a prey worthy of his own ambition he would drive himself into a frenzy trying to hunt it down, and this time that prey was Keido. Segai’s teeth were at his heels. 

At the very least he’d bought himself an alibi and the cover of chaos – there were other GHQ personnel being sent in even as he spoke, whether to assist with the situation or whether they’d been injured themselves. He distinctly recognized Segai’s aide at one point – so he wasn’t the only one who had come specifically for him. Perfect. 

Tonight, then. He would act tonight. Segai said it himself, he must have had a dozen different drugs being pumped into him – it would be an unfortunate accident. Happened all the time, reactions that no one had any way of predicting in the rush following the apocalypse, and Keido would finally be out from underneath Da’ath’s claw.


End file.
